Q for something different

Luke and Matthew

The quadrupling of versions - in the official Christian
scriptures - of the career of Jesus of Nazareth, is an
open invitation to us to do some thinking for ourselves. The four
Gospels are obviously not independent eye-witness accounts, and the
way they relate to one another tells us a lot about how their authors' minds
worked.

The standard scholarly explanation for the connections amongst the first
three Gospels is the two source theory. Mark, it is very
commonly believed - on good evidence - was written
first (towards 70 C.E.). Matthew and Luke copied from Mark a
generation later. They also worked with another written
source, 'Q' (for want of a better label) which no
longer survives as a separate document. 'Q' was in Greek, at
least in the editions that Matthew and Luke got hold of.

We can make a good stab at reconstructing 'Q' on the basis
of the non-Markan material common to Matthew and Luke, with a few
other bits and pieces which seem to belong in the same company. A most
interesting document emerges. It has an integrity and completeness of its
own - which is some sort of vindication of the whole theory.

'Q' begins with a sample of John the Baptist's stern
preaching, and moves on to the temptation of Jesus in the
wilderness. There is one miracle story - the healing
of the centurion's slave, included probably because of the important
saying it contains. 'Q' is in large measure a compilation of
sayings of Jesus, organized into discourses - the
material of the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the
Plain, for instance, and including some
parables.

A document like this has been put together to meet the needs of
some particular community, and it is reasonable to suppose that the
selection of material and the way it is presented will tell us something
about them. We get the impression of a sectarian group
located, geographically, close to the Sea of Galilee.
It is 'sectarian' in the sense of reacting against the dominant religious
pattern and its advocates, in the name of a purer form.
'Q' is scathing about Pharisees and Scribes. There is
instruction calculated to preserve the unity of the group, under
pressure. There is detailed guidance for carrying through the
'mission'. It seems that the mission didn't have much success,
to judge by their bitter reaction. The 'Q' people know
what poverty means. Practical necessities of food and clothing
certainly do matter, yet they are challenged to rise above these
concerns to trust in God. They look forward to the coming of
the 'Son of Man' of Daniel 7, through whom God's reign of
righteousness will be established.

It's not too fanciful to suppose that we have in 'Q' a kind
of missing link between later Christianity and the actual career of Jesus
of Nazareth. It is understandable that most of the sayings material that
seems most surely original to Jesus comes to us in this strand of tradition.
Scholars date 'Q' in the fifties, which is early,
compared with almost anything else we have.

Of the greatest interest is what 'Q' leaves out.
There are no nativity stories. Disciples are not mentioned
by name. Jesus is not described as 'Messiah' - that
stream of Jewish expectation is not picked up. Nor is he closely
identified with the coming 'Son of Man'. He is the messenger of
divine Wisdom, and that is sufficient dignity and authority.

The execution of Jesus is not recounted, and there is no hint that
his death has saving significance. Jesus dies just as you expect prophets
to die at the hands of the establishment. 'Q' offers none of the
sacrifical theology which became pervasive in early Christianity. At an
earlier time it was strongly argued against the existence of 'Q' that
there would never have been a 'gospel' that lacked this theological
dimension. The 1945 discovery of the Gospel of Thomas, a
well-developed first-century pure-sayings gospel, rendered that argument
null and void.

If atonement thinking did not feature in the Jesus movement, we
may wonder where it came from. It certainly arose early,
because it was part of the orthodoxy Paul inherited. There is a
tantalizing gap of a generation between the death of Jesus and the beginning
of written reflection on his career. Though we don't have the record of it
happening, we may guess that somewhere an educated scribal
group, recognizing Jesus as in truth a word from God, tried to think
through the significance of that insight in terms of their Jewish faith
tradition. What they came up with was the conviction that the death of
Jesus was the final achievement of what the Jewish temple system had always
been concerned with. It was a radical sacrifice for sin that had universal
implication. This caught on. It suggested the way for an
integration of the old and the new. The gift in Jesus was the
decisive stage in God's ages-long salvation-work for humankind.

We now know that there was variety in earliest Christian
thinking. Paths diverged. But dissenters on this theological
issue achieved only a hidden representation in the Christian
scriptures - through 'Q'. The winners of the
inter-Christian competition for the right to call the theological
shots (as ultimately judged by the Emperor Constantine)
gained, as part of the prize, the chance to decide which
scriptures would become 'official'.

We cannot reasonably claim that early theological developments were
misguided. But we are entitled to ask whether particular ancient
rationalizations remain appropriate to our own circumstances. The variety
of focus for different Christian groups at the beginning, alongside the
perception that Jesus himself did not offer any kind of 'Christian
theology', invites us to seek insight into the Jesus-event that speaks to
the challenges of our own time.

Note: There is an excellent
presentationof a reconstruction of the 'Q' document in
The Complete Gospels - Annotated Scholars VersionRobert J. Miller
editor HarperSanFrancisco 1994